Part 44 (1/2)
”Too late!” he cried.
She gave him a look of sympathy.
”He died a few minutes ago.”
Unable to utter a word, he signed to her. Gently, she turned back the sheet. He stepped forward; all hatred, all bitterness, slipped from him like a cloak. Joseph was no more. He could marry Vanda.
This was his uppermost thought; his next, as he gazed at that familiar, yet transformed face, a deep relief that Roman had not suffered that death. Then came remorse for the speed of his thoughts towards marrying her this man had loved, and sharp pain that Destiny had taken him in such a way. He wanted Joseph to die fighting, as young men should in war-time, in the open, falling to G.o.d's good earth, whence they come, mingling their life's blood with the fountain of all life. That livid, emaciated face, with evil stains on the once healthy cheeks was a reproach to modernity, a seal upon the Cossack's cry of ”murdered!”
For a long time he gazed and many an emotion rose and swelled in his heart; scenes of boyhood sprang up again; memories of the chase, of the life they once trod together, as dead for him now as was Joseph himself.
And whilst he breathed a prayer for the dead which Father Constantine had taught them all, he thanked G.o.d that he had resisted the call of pa.s.sion a few nights ago, when he sat and watched the summer moon, so sure it lighted Joseph's body on the battlefield. Now, at least, he could look on his remains without remorse for evil action.
The nurse had gone; but two orderlies came up.
”We must bury him,” one of them said in the Russian of Moscow.
As Ian looked up they noticed his eyes were dimmed with tears unshed.
”Is there a Catholic priest about?”
The men looked at one another.
”In the town perhaps--not here.”
”I'll bring one.”
”We cannot wait till you go so far. We have strict orders to bury each poor victim at once. What will you? The infection is deadly and we are working day and night.”
”I'll be back before you close the coffin.”
”Coffin! There are none left.”
Ian pa.s.sed the one nearest him a fifty-rouble note.
”I know the town. Wait for me.” And he hurried out.
He was desperately anxious to give Joseph Christian burial. He felt he must; it might atone for his fault of feeling that great load off his heart now he knew Vanda would be his. Then he remembered the Cossack colonel's card. He had promised to fight, had insisted on being drafted into a hard-fighting regiment. But that was an hour ago. That was when thoughts of Vanda were pain, and he did not so much mind if he got killed. Now, he hated the idea of it. If he got killed soon he would be no more married to her than Joseph had been. He rebelled. Why should he go and get killed? Russia had plenty of men. He had lost enough in the war already without losing the last chance of happiness. Russia had turned him away once and he was not in duty bound to apply again.
Besides, he could do war-work without putting on a Cossack coat; could volunteer for a mission abroad; for instance say to the Pope, who only knew what the Germans and their friends told him...
As he stumbled over the road, choked with the debris of a retreating army, he felt particularly fitted to tell the Pope what Poland was enduring. He had an uncle in Rome, a younger brother of his father, created a cardinal during the pontificate of Pius the Tenth. So he could gain the Pope's ear far more easily than many other people. Rome, he argued, had no more faithful children than the Poles, who have suffered much persecution for their faith. And it was high time the Holy Father knew the truth about the Germans. He, Ian, would tell him.